


canis lupus familiaris

by TheAceApples



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Time Travel, Canon Divergence, GFY, Gen, ambiguous greenseeing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-18 18:57:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16522763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAceApples/pseuds/TheAceApples
Summary: "Get her a dog, she'll be happier for it."





	canis lupus familiaris

It brings him no pleasure to admit it—Joffrey, the idiot, let himself be disarmed by Ned’s fierce little she-wolf, probably before the _actual_ wolf even touched him, and Robert holds little sympathy for his spoilt mewling—but Cersei’s right about one thing, and it’s that the damned wolf will only cause more problems later on. Attacking the Crown Prince, for fuck’s sake. So he gives Ned the only advice he can, to get his little girl a proper godsdamned pet for such a proper little lady.

He isn’t proud of the order, but his hands are tied.

Only, when he moves past his old friend, he finds his way blocked by Ned’s little she-wolf, the one who looks so much like Lyanna that it hurts. When he looks down at her, though, it’s not the panicked, red-faced child from only seconds ago who stares back up at him. If he didn’t know better, and fuck if he doesn’t, Robert would swear that this little Arya Stark was an entirely different animal than the one before.

No more tears. No more angry shouting and pleading. Just cold rage in those big, Stark grey eyes. And then she opens her mouth, and part of Robert wants to recoil at the naked contempt in her squeaky little voice, which suddenly sounds much older than it had but moments ago.

_“‘Get her a dog’?”_ she snarls in outrage, and Ned tries to pull her away but she dodges neatly. “A direwolf south of the Wall is about as common as a _fucking dragon."_

“Arya!” Ned chastises, shocked at her language, and the crowd of assembled men shifts uncomfortably around them.

_“‘Get her a dog’?”_ she repeats again, mockingly. “Sansa Stark is to be your good-daughter,” she continues, as if he’s somehow fucking forgot. “If she marries your puffed up, bullying brute of a son, she’ll be a _princess._ When you die, she’ll be _queen_ of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Robert can’t look away from her avid little face, even as Cersei says something scathing behind him. She just watches him with cold Northern eyes and dares him to—do _something,_ fuck if he knows what.

“Unless you plan on giving her the _best damned dog_ in the Seven Kingdoms—one that can’t be touched by money, or politics, or cowardice; one that won’t hesitate to rip out the throat of any man who threatens her—then you’re sending her into that _nest of fucking vipers_ without her _only protector.”_ She smoothly avoids Ned again when he tries to grab her arm, sliding out of his grip and stepping closer to Robert. He can’t even hear what Cersei’s screaming about now, too transfixed by Arya Stark’s rage. Her voice drops lower and he catches himself leaning down to hear her words. _“‘Get her a dog’?_ You’d best get her the strongest, fastest, _meanest_ dog on the _fucking continent_ to make up for leaving her _defenseless.”_

“Arya.”

Robert and the snarling little girl both straighten and turn towards the source of the soft, icy voice. And just like the she-wolf, Ned’s oldest girl stands taller than she had moments before, her pretty little face no longer crumpled and tearful. Now she stands like a pillar of stone among the seasoned warriors of the South, and stares down the little she-wolf with eyes that look far more like shards of ice than any man or woman with the Tully look ought.

“Leave it,” Sansa Stark commands her little sister, voice colder than a Northern winter and sounding years older than he’d ever heard it. No one in the tent says a word for a shocked second, and then Ned finally gets a grip on his youngest daughter’s arm and hauls her away.

“My deepest apologies, Your Grace,” Ned says, and Robert blinks the ghosts out of his eyes.

He glances over at Cersei—her beautiful face a mask of disdain and hatred, spewing a litany of demands and _how dare yous_ fit to make Tywin Lannister proud—and it clicks in Robert’s mind what the little she-wolf means.

“Enough, woman,” he barks at Cersei, and she quiets down again, resentful as always. The men, including Ned, all look to him for decisive action. “Ned, get rid of the wolf,” he commands, and his best friend in the world flinches. His daughters, on the other hand, watch him with steady eyes and unfeeling expressions as he bends down towards Arya. “You want a dog for your sister, girl? One to watch over her once her direwolf is gone? One to protect her from anything and everything without so much as blinking?”

The she-wolf doesn’t answer, but Robert can see the challenge in her eyes.

“Very well, then,” he says with a nod, and looks to the back of the tent, where stands the second largest shadow in the damn Seven Kingdoms. “Clegane! Over here, now!”

The man obeys without a word, marching through the crowd and stopping before them with his customary blank-faced scowl. Robert doesn’t know how a man can give the impression of scowling without so much as twitching his ruin of a face, but Sandor fucking Clegane has managed it for years.

“You’ve served my wife’s family faithfully for years, Clegane, and watched over my son almost as long,” he says loudly over the growing mutters of the tent. “Now your king commands you to watch over my son’s betrothed just as faithfully. What say you to that?”

“As the king commands,” Clegane rasps, and Robert turns back to the Starks.

“There you are,” he says, staring past Ned’s shocked face to his daughters. “You wanted a dog; you’ve got a Hound. Now let that be the fucking end of it.” He strides out of the tent then, and deliberately ignores the small but growing part of his mind insisting that the last thing he saw in Arya Stark’s eyes was triumph.

**Author's Note:**

> we all know the drill at this point. i might continue this. i might not. who's to say, certainly not me.


End file.
